Freelance Digital Journalist

Has ‘BuzzFeedification’ changed the way news is presented and consumed?

BuzzFeed is a media outlet that has changed tremendously over the last few years, and has been hailed one of the most relevant news sources for millennials. It has transformed itself from being a website known purely for viral content – and has been looked down upon for doing so – to one that is currently hiring editors from other, more established, media outlets such as The Guardian. It has changed the way news is presented to a younger audience, through different choices of format and presentation of its content. A key factor in the way BuzzFeed has changed the way news is consumed is that it is built around the idea of ‘shareability’ – a phenomenon that has consequences associated with Lazarsfeld’s Limited Effects Theory. It is important to note, however, that services such as BuzzFeed have also adopted traditional methods in their coverage of more serious content…